


Tea and Sympathy

by phinnia



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 18:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16792147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phinnia/pseuds/phinnia
Summary: There is tea, and sympathy, and terrible cookies, and even more terrible breakfast, and Proust, and Foghorn Leghorn.   Set just after 'The Chute'.





	Tea and Sympathy

“These are terrible madelines.” Paris says from across the low table.  
  
Chakotay looks at him twice - blonde pilot sitting on the floor, folded like some crumpled origami paper creation, long legs and arms and attitude problem, drinking his tea - but his statement _still_ seems to have come out of nowhere. “Pardon?”  
  
“The tea cakes. I don’t care if Neelix _calls_ them madelines, they still aren’t. Doing a fine time reminding me of old memories, they just taste like pleeka rinds.”  
  
Chakotay’s mouth twitches. “They do, kind of. Old memories?”  
  
“You’ve never read _A la Recherche du Temps Perdu_?” He says it casually, in French, like _everybody’_ s read it in French.   
  
“Wasn’t that that really long book by Proust?”  
  
“Seven volumes. Read it in Auckland.”  
  
When he’d volunteered to counsel Paris, he never figured this sort of thing would come up. “You read _Proust_ in _prison_?”  
  
“I had the time.” Paris’s eyes look inward. “He had this whole theory about … you know, he called it involuntary memory. Essence of the past. Eating a madeline soaked in tea - even one that tastes like pleeka rinds - can remind you of another time where you were eating a madeline soaked in tea.”  
  
“Research calls that ‘chaining’. You’re linking the memories together by a common thread.” He tries to bring this session back on track. “So what are the cakes telling you today?”  
  
“Well, for one thing, not to eat any more of the damn things.” Tom pushes the plate away. “They _usually_ remind me of my youngest sister. She liked them. She always used to steal mine. The cook - we had a cook then, we used to have a cook with four kids - used to ice hers, put little pink flowers on them. Tulips. She loved those things.”  
  
“Where is she now?”   
  
Tom’s smile twists bitterly into a mockery of itself. “Died when I was seven. She was five.”  
  
“Oh.” He doesn’t know what to say now. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Yeah, me too. She was my favorite sister, you know? I have two others, but they’re both older than I am. Moira’s five years older, Kathleen’s ten years older. But Zoe was … she was really special. She could break your heart. I’m pretty sure she broke my old man’s heart. Never showed any sign of having one after that point, anyway. You know, _I_ was supposed to be watching her? Who the hell trusts a _seven_ year old to watch a _five_ year old? I wouldn’t leave myself in custody of a cactus, never mind a child.”   
  
“How did she die?”   
  
“Slipped on some rocks, fell into a river, hit her head. _My_ fault, of course. The first of _many_ things that were my fault over the years.” He looks around. “Is there a bell or something? Are we done?”  
  
“We can be done.” Three minutes left, but he’s not going to quibble over three minutes.  
  
Paris drinks the rest of his tea and puts the cup in the replicator. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of the cakes, I guess.” And he leaves in a long skulk of limbs and red-and-black uniform.  
  
Well. That was … unusual. Chakotay looks at the tea cakes and puts them into the recycler.  
  
  
  
Another day, another counselling session. They were in orbit of a planet, the seventh in the Terelia system.   
  
Tom tries another cookie and winces. “What the _hell_ is this?”  
  
“Neelix said peanut butter.”  
  
“Lies.”  
  
Chakotay tastes one and almost chokes on it.   
  
“See what I mean? And I _love_ peanut butter cookies. Really, peanut butter anything. This is _blasphemy_. There are no peanuts in this, and possibly no butter, either.” He settles himself on the floor. “Do we have some kind of … you know, list of stuff we have to go through before we’re done or whatever? That’s how it worked in Auckland.”  
  
“Not really, no. How was Auckland?”  
  
“Are you asking if I sold you out? Because I didn’t.”  
  
“No. I just want to know how it was for you in there.”  
  
A very slight snort, and Chakotay can feel Paris’s eyes on him like a scanner. Like he’s deciding what degree of truth he should tell.  
  
He has some more tea and fiddles with the cup - takes it out of the saucer, turns it, puts it down again at a different angle - and then starts talking. “The things they claim don’t happen in Federation prisons are even bigger lies than these cookies. No rapes, no fighting: that’s all bullshit, you know. The guards ignore all of that. When they’re not actively taking part in it. They love to look the other way. And they get slipped a little latinum, or the best parts of the inmates’ packages from home, to do that.”  
  
“Were you …” He can’t say it, so he hopes Paris gets what he means.  
  
That twisted smile again. “Of course I was. I’m surprised you even _asked_ that question, commander.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Next time, just take it as a given that unless you’re speaking to someone with Vulcan-level strength or higher, they probably got raped in prison.”  
  
“So that’s why you always sit with your back to a wall.”  
  
“He got one.” Tom has another drink. “Well, that and innovative inmates can make knives out of anything. I saw a shiv made out of a tooth cleaner tube once. A _plastic_ tooth cleaner tube.”  
  
“So did Akitiri bring back bad memories for you?” This is what he’s supposed to be counselling Paris about, after all.  
  
“I wasn’t really afraid for myself.” Tom says, staring into his tea like he’s trying to read the leaves. “I was afraid for Harry more than me. I mean, Akitiri for me was just another few days of crap on top of the pile of crap that’s my life. But I didn’t want Harry to get hurt. He doesn’t deserve that. He deserves better. And I couldn’t protect him after I got hurt. That was the worst part. I let him down.”  
  
“You got stabbed by a maniac with an implant in his head.”  
  
“Yeah, you could say that. But I still let Harry down. I was trying to protect him.”  
  
“Don’t beat yourself up over this, Tom.”  
  
A bitter, mocking smile this time. “Now you’re asking me to change the habits of a lifetime.”  
  
  
He goes into Sandrine’s that night to find Tom sitting at his usual table (back to the wall, right next to the bar, where he could see the door and the pool table) having a beer.  
  
“Mind if I join you?”  
  
“As long as you didn’t bring any of those _disgusting_ cookies.”  
  
“I didn’t.” Chakotay laughs. “I heard he’s trying chocolate chip for tomorrow.”  
  
“Well, that should be something to look forward to.” Tom has the last swallow of his beer. “I don’t know what, but _something_. Are we having two counselling sessions today, or what?”  
  
“No, this is just me having a beer.”  
  
“Oh.” Tom shrugs and makes some complicated hand gesture to Sandrine. She brings over two glasses of whatever Tom was drinking.  
  
Chakotay tries it. It’s different. He would have said it was lighter than he usually drinks, but it has a kick once it hits the back of your throat. “What is this?”  
  
“Fisherman’s Knot. It’s from a very small brewery in a little place in Canada called Halifax.” Tom shrugs. “Used to go sailing around there. Hell of a place for sailing. I sailed all around Canada, up through the Arctic, down the Pacific Coast.”  
  
“I didn’t know you sailed.”  
  
“It’s not that much different than flying. It’s just … it’s like flying, but on the water. No … flying is like sailing in space. That’s probably more accurate.”  
  
He imagines Paris’ hands on the rigging of a boat - letting down this sail, tying this knot, letting out that sail. He can see it pretty well, actually.   
  
He’s a pretty good-looking man when you look past the veneer of sarcasm that’s always on top. The trick is letting yourself look past that. He never bothered to see past it when they were in the Maquis together, but he’s starting to see past it now. All those long-angled limbs, and his eyes were almost the exact blue of a summer afternoon he remembered with one of his first boyfriends on Dorvan V.   
  
He looks over his beer glass to note that Tom is eyeing him speculatively.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Nothing.” Another little smile. It’s not bitter this time, though, or mocking. It’s … thoughtful.  
  
  
“These taste like chocolate _chalk_ cookies.” Tom makes a horrible face. “I didn’t think anything could be worse than the peanut butter. Remind me never to think that again.”  
  
“Supposedly, this is the Delaney sisters’ grandmother’s recipe.” Chakotay says calmly.  
  
“She’s probably rolling over in her grave, poor woman. I hope she _haunts_ Neelix for this.”  
  
“I would.” Chakotay handed him his tea. “So what should we talk about?”  
  
“Oh, hell, I don’t know.” Tom sighs into his tea cup. The little ripples travel across it and hit the other edge. “It’s February, my least favorite month of the year. Nobody will play pool with me until after the middle of the month, because they’ve used all their replicator credits on ridiculous gifts. The single ones are calling it ‘Singles Awareness Day’, which is _worse_ , I think, and Neelix is thinking up some stupid party which he’s _probably_ going to serve these cookies at. And I can’t even console myself by getting half-price candy in the stores the next day, because they don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day out here. Just in this little isolated part of the Delta Quadrant.” He smiles bitterly again. “So, that’s _my_ rant out of the way. You?”  
  
“It used to be a better holiday.” Chakotay says. “When the Romans had it. Then it was all about sex and running around naked.”  
  
“Hey.” Now Paris’s eyes were glittering. “I can get behind sex and running around naked.” His voice turns into a Southern drawl. “See, that there’s a joke, son. Get behind sex.”  
  
Chakotay didn’t really get the joke, or the reason for the drawl. “Might be sacrificing a goat involved, though.”  
  
“Do we have to eat the goat? Because I’ve _had_ goat. Didn’t really care for goat.”  
  
“No, just use the entrails to forecast the future. And leave part of it on the altar.”  
  
“Do you _speak_ goat entrails?”  
  
Chakotay laughs. “I took a course in them.”  
  
“Great!” Tom rubs his hands together. “Now, all we need is a goat.”  
  
“We could use Neelix in an emergency. If he’s going to make any more of these damn cookies, I consider that an emergency.”  
  
Tom’s eyes are sparkling. “I’ll hold him down. The knives are behind the counter.”  
  
  
Chakotay went into the mess hall the following morning.  
  
“Want some leola root vegetarian breakfast casserole, commander?” Neelix asked him.  
  
“Uh … sure, Neelix.” It looked harmless enough.   
  
He found Tom sitting at an empty table (in the corner, back to the window, like always).  
  
“Mind if I join you?”  
  
“Sure.” Tom poked at his own breakfast. “I don’t know what’s in the non-vegetarian version of this, but I think I just saw part of it move.”  
  
“Are you sure it wasn’t your fork?”  
  
“I am positive it wasn’t my fork, and this is worse than the cookies.” He spots somebody across the room. “Oh, God, no.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Ensign Shaw. She’s got some kind of … weird thing for me. She’s cute, just not my type, and she won’t listen to the word ‘no’ and she’s been trying to ask me to this stupid party.” Tom looks panicked. “I’ve gotta get out of here before she - oh, shit, she saw me.”  
  
She seemed to be on her way over this way.  
  
Chakotay made a split-second decision. He grabbed Tom Paris’s chin and kissed him on the mouth, in front of the entire mess hall.  
  
He saw blue eyes staring into his own for a fraction of a second, and then watched them flutter shut, and felt fingers comb through his hair and a tongue flicking across his lower lip.   
  
The tongue sort of decided it for him; he was pretty sure that speculative look was Tom looking him over, but the tongue was a for-sure-certain-thing. He opened his own mouth and felt Tom’s smile against his lips.  
  
“Is she gone now?” he murmured when they eventually broke apart.  
  
“I think she’s gone.” Chakotay tore his eyes away from Tom’s face to look. “Yup, gone.”  
  
“Thank God.” He takes a bite of the mystery breakfast. “When’s your next day off?”  
  
“I have … this afternoon off, actually.”  
  
“Me too.” Not looking up from the breakfast plate. “Uh … I’ve got a great sailing program, in the holodeck. Lake Como. If you want to go. You don’t have to, I mean, if this was just a thing to …”  
  
“Drop your fork.” Chakotay says, white-faced - and not because of the question.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I just saw your breakfast move.”  
  
“Oh, shit.” Tom drops his fork on the table. “ _Neelix!_ ”  
  
“What is it, Lieutenant?” The chubby Talaxian hustles over.  
  
“This is _moving_.”  
  
“Oh, it’s supposed to! It’s an experience for the diner! You catch the grubs and -“  
  
“Oh no.” Tom shoves the plate away with his fork. “You can _shove_ your experience, Neelix. I do _not_ eat stuff that is still moving.”  
  
“We should probably go.” Chakotay says.  
  
“Uh, yeah.” Tom drops his fork on the table.   
  
They walk quietly through the halls.  
  
“Sure.” Chakotay says.  
  
“Huh?” Tom looks lost in thought, staring at his boot tips.  
  
“Sailing. What time?”  
  
“Uh … fourteen-hundred hours?”  
  
“Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”  
  
Tom grins at him, a real one, all happiness and mischief. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. :)


End file.
